Pumpkin Palooza!

October 16, 2011

So basically, Sunday was our Pumpkin Palooza day. It was amazing and extravagant and started off with breakfast at the Lost Dog Cafe on Folly (which I review in another of my posts) with Sean’s mom and her boyfriend. It was great fun. Sean and I then went on our 2nd Annual Pumpkin Pickin’ Extravaganza at Legare Farms while Christine was doing homework. We picked out 3 spectacular pumpkins and the closest thing to Rumpkin Pumpkin we could find (it really wasn’t even that close).

RIP RUMPKIN. WE STILL MISS YOU! (He’s the cute one in the middle)

I digress. After we retrieved our pumpkins, we let Christine draw designs on them while Sean and I made delicious Bourbon and Pumpkin Milkshakes, all while watching Stephen King’s Rose Red.

Did I mention it’s 4.5 hours long?

After we were good and liquored up via milkshakes, Sean and I picked up the knives and started carving. We’re all about safety here at QotFA.

Ron Swanson. Because we love Parks and Recreation… and Meat.

These are both Sean and Christine’s pumpkins. I forgot to take pictures of Captain Hook before I left him to liquify on my porch.

After pumpkin carving was complete, Sean and I started making dinner using the pasta maker he’d gotten me as a birthday gift. I have to say, I think Sean was a bit more excited about it than I was.

That, my friends, is the look of a man hell-bent on making the perfect ravioli.

Anywho, here are the recipes! (Some of the content below comes from All the Hungry People, a collaborative blog on which I am a contributor. GO LOOK AT IT)

Mix up all those lovely ingredients (minus the sprinkles) in a blender and garnish with a beautiful sugar rim! Enjoy!

Fezzik is a fan of Pumpkin Palooza…. also bourbon.

Pumpkin Ravioli Recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

For The Filling:

1 Two To Three Pound Pumpkin

1 Tbsp Butter

1 Onion

2 Garlic Cloves

2 tsp Ground Sage, or 6-7 leaves fresh sage, chopped

2 Tbsp Honey

4 oz Goat Chevre

Salt & Pepper, to taste

For The Pasta:

2¼ cups Flour

⅓ cup Water

2 Eggs

Tablespoon Olive Oil

Pinch of Salt

DIRECTIONS:

Filling:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Quarter pumpkin and remove all seeds (set these aside and you can toast them!)Place pumpkin face down on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 30-60 minutes, or until a dull knife pierces the flesh easily (the skin may still be tough). When pumpkin is cooked, be sure to let it cool some so you don’t burn yourself!

2. Meanwhile, pour yourself a cup of tea or glass of wine, and get started on prep work. Dice the onion finely, mince the garlic.

4. Using a large spoon, remove the flesh of the pumpkin from the skin. Mash pumpkin with a fork (or toss it in a food processor)and stir into the onion mixture.

5. While mixture is still slightly warm, stir in Goat Chevre and mix until everything looks creamy and delicious. Add Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and set aside.

Pasta:

6. Combine flour, water, eggs, olive oil and salt in a medium bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until it becomes too solid to stir.

7. Remove dough from bowl and knead on a clean, floured surface for a few minutes, until the dough has a smooth texture. You can use a pasta machine, or simply roll your dough with a rolling pin either way you want your dough to be thin enough that you can see the shape of your hand through it when you hold it.

Putting it all together:

8. Working on a floured surface, Start with two pieces of pasta, one slightly longer than the other. Using a spoon, place small dollops of filling in rows on the smaller piece of pasta – leave about 3/4″ between drops of filling.

9. Starting at one side, gently lay the larger piece of pasta over the other, pushing it down onto the bottom piece of pasta in between each of the lumps of filling (if the pasta is too dry and won’t stick, use a pastry brush and water to moisten it slightly). There is a bit of a learning curve here, but don’t worry because this ravioli is always well received, even if it looks ridiculous!

10. Cut the ravioli apart from each other with a sharp knife, to be extra sure they’ll stay together, and for a decorative touch, use a fork (or one of those fancy ravioli rollers) to crimp the edges

11. Put the ravioli in boiling water and remove with a slotted spoon as they begin to float.

Christine is such a talented ravioli holder..

For the sauce, Sean and I went a little crazy. We browned some butter and sage and added some Alfredo sauce and these sundried tomato and garlic chicken sausages. It was pretty decadent.

Not-so-Rumpkin pumpkin in the background… Also, Sean’s hand.

The final product, AKA “I Never Want To See Another Pumpkin Ever Again”

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Sydney is the founder of Queen of the Food Age, a regionally recognized food blog that her mother insists is the greatest thing she’s ever read. Sydney spends her free time reading and writing but not doing arithmetic because numbers confuse her. Generally you can find her laughing at goofy videos on YouTube, taking Instagrams of her food while at dinner with friends, or singing really bad Journey karaoke.

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Loving the Pumpkin Milkshakes! ….found your site because i’m both a foodie & a pumpkin carver, ..not to mention my own hacked together site is called Pumpkin Palooza, good to hear Bourbon works well in it!

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Queen of the Food Age is blog about everything food related, featuring quotes, recipes, reviews, events, pictures, musings and other random fodder that pops into our brains.
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